A Study in Height
by SunShark
Summary: Thirteen year old John Watson has lived in the same village all his life, helping out where he can and studying to be a doctor. He's...okay with his life. And then Mike Stanford shows up... A Pokemon x Sherlock xover
1. Chapter 1

So, I feel really bad for not updating ever, but I had an idea for another crossover, so...I'm sure my muse will come back someday, hehe

* * *

"Hamish, give it back."

The pidgey ignored him. Completely ignored him, in fact, while diligently tangling his roll of bandages in the tree branches.

"Hamish, I mean it. I spent three hours rolling all of those!"

Satisfied now that one roll was hopelessly tangled, the pidgey then turned to nip another from his bag. Said bag was also conveniently stuck in the tree, courtesy of a certain brown menace.

"Hamish! Don't make me come up there!"

Finally, the pidgey deigned to acknowledge him in a huff, the stubborn git. John responded by chucking a rock at it. It hit the branch right at the bird's feet, shaking its perch, but it still didn't come down. In fact, it took up its wrapping activities with renewed vigor.

John simply sighed. They both knew that if he really wanted to, the preteen could have knocked the pidgey down over three hours ago when this mess started, and make it hurt. What could he say, he had a good aim. But he didn't want to injure his friend, so that option was out.

Which left two options; either he climb the tree, or find some new bandages, and a new supply kit at that. John examined the tree and shuddered faintly. The lowest branch was still a good five feet above his head. No way could he jump that high. No way would he risk a fall from that height again either.

Therefore…

"Fine." John squared his shoulders and walked away. Ma did say to pick and chose his battles carefully, and this was clearly not one he would win. And it wouldn't take that long to get new supplies, as Dr. Sawyer was very generous toward her little helper. He might have some trouble finding a new bag, but someone was bound to have an old one somewhere. That's how he got his first one, and second after the first broke.

He was kind of ticked that his second bag was now MIA due to obsessive compulsive pidgeys, though. He had liked that one, and Hamish took it without reason! What was going on in that bird brain?

And with his back turned, he never did see how the pidgey paused in its work to watch him leave.

* * *

"Good afternoon Dr. Sawyer!"

"John!"

Dr. Sawyer looked up from her paperwork. John fidgeted slightly before her; he almost always wore his supply bag to the clinic, and felt naked without it. Not that it was his fault it was missing.

"You're a bit late, Sarah's already started in the backroom without you," Dr. Sawyer said as John went to scrub his hands in the washroom. He then started toward the supply closet for a spare scrub before his brain caught up with him. 'Backroom', he thought, 'right. It's a paperwork day then'.

Just as he turned for the hall though, the doctor stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "John, is Hamish okay?" she asked gently. "It's just that it's been a while since you last showed up with him. You two are usually joined at the hip."

John flushed. Stupid pidgey, first his bag and now this! "It's, ah," he stuttered, "fine. We're fine. It's all fine. It's nothing." He shouldn't make handle people worrying about him, he didn't need it! Especially not from the kind Dr. Sawyer, he shouldn't trouble her. He could handle this.

Dr. Sawyer raised an eyebrow and glanced pointedly at his side, where his bag used to rest. John refused to back down.

Finally, she moved her he hand. "Sarah's waiting for you," she said. And as he moved down the hall, she called out again. "And remember to come back this Friday so I can check your leg!"

John flushed further and hurried for the door at the end of the hall. This was so embarrassing! Really, he was fine!

* * *

He did try to sneak into the backroom _before_ she noticed, but of course…

"_John!_ You're late!" Sarah scolded quietly, glaring at him over her files. File sorting was a very important part of clinical practice, Dr. Sawyer had said. It didn't stop Sarah from heavily disliking it ("No hating, hating is bad" she had told him, back when they were seven and naïve). It also didn't stop the doctor from using them for such manual tasks, though to be fair, they did sign up for it.

John 'eeped' an apology. Well, technically it was Hamish's fault he was late, but technically John could have ignored him earlier.

He quietly scooped up a sizable amount of files and settled into his own corner. Each file was labeled with Dr. Sawyer's familiar messy scrawl that he and Sarah needed to copy into legible words, and he immersed himself in the task. It wasn't hard, and he read glimpses of Mrs. Turner's sprained wrists and Mr. Harken's arthritis and little Megan's ear infection (apparently from sticking a carrot slice in her ear). Funny little stories of normal people's lives in which normal people injure themselves.

There was patient confidentiality, so he and Sarah couldn't talk about anything they learned, but the community was so small that gossip spread anyway.

A paper ball to his forehead brought him out of his musing. 'So where's Hamish?'

John groaned. He patted around him for a blank piece of paper, then gave up and wrote on the message. 'Not you too!'

'It's been a week! Mom's getting worried!'

'I didn't tell her to worry! And everything's fine!' He underlined 'fine' extra hard before tossing his reply. Sarah ignored his hint.

'I thought you'd be avoiding those cliffs you loved so much instead of avoiding that bird brain.'

'Hamish is NOT a bird brain! And stop calling him that!' And he had been avoiding cliffs, but he wasn't going to boost her ego by saying so.

'See? You guys are definitely still buddies, so hurry up and get back together! I'm sick of seeing you mope in here every other day!'

John glared directly at her. "I'm not moping!"

Sarah matched his glare with her own. "Yes you are! You never go off exploring anymore and you don't play with Hamish or me –"

"Well maybe I'm too old to play baby games – "

"And you spend all your time wrapping and re-wrapping those bandages –"

"I do that all the time!"

"And the only way to get you to speak up is to shout at you!" Sarah burst, and something suspiciously wet gleamed in her eyes before her sleeve covered it. She stood up.

"I'm sorry, John, but I want everything to go back to the way it used to be." And with that, she ran out of the room.

It was quiet. John felt his throat rasp a little, and he wished there was a water fountain in the room but he didn't want to go out and see Sarah there. After an hour, though, it was clear that she wasn't coming back in, and he wasn't getting much work done, so he began to clean up.

A glance to the left showed Sarah's side to be much messier than normal, since she had left so quickly. After an internal debate, he tidied her side as well. He didn't mean to yell even if she started it. He didn't want to yell at anyone.

Dr. Sawyer was watching him as he left, and only nodded when he said he was done for the day. Favorite neighbor or not, he had just upset her daughter.

* * *

Yeah, so there weren't actually that many pokemon in this chapter. Next one will be better :D


	2. Chapter 2

Well then, second chapter. Yes, more pokemon will show up eventually, but this is mainly Sherlock verse and characters. And I own none of it.

* * *

He wasn't sure what to do now. Right after leaving the clinic, he remembered that a certain pidgey had made off with his kit, so he couldn't check supply (he did not spend that much time on it, Sarah was exaggerating), and that the clinic was suppose to have lasted another three and a half hours.

Well then.

The grocery was the nearest building that he wandered into. Yes, they still had milk, he had bought that two days ago. Meat, yes, cheese, yes, carrots and potatoes and the little cut celery sticks mom loved and the cans of beer dad sometimes left lying around and the tomatoes Harry had declared gross and refused to eat on principle. So there really was no point in coming here.

He did find a sale on sitrus berries. Those he bought a good dozen of, along with a bottle of Moomoo milk.

The next stop was the post office. There really wasn't much of a point for one, since the village was so small. Well, sure, every blue moon someone's distant cousin would send holiday greetings, but that was about it. John was pretty sure if someone in their town became a trainer they would send more mail, but nope – No trainers from this village. At least half the people here had some sort of poke-phobia, so it was unlikely that they would get one either.

No mail. Well…he checked his watch. It wasn't even one yet, of course there wouldn't be any mail! Moving on.

Next was a giant tree at the village center. The lowest branches could have been climbed by someone John's height or shorter. He was well informed that at this time of year pidgey liked to hop on the highest branches and eat all the flowers, and that they might ignore you if you chucked a rock at it (as oppose to any other time of year, when they would have attacked instead). He knew also that there was also a very nice seat halfway up that had the best view of the entire village and a bit of the pond beyond.

He moved past it.

Continuing in that direction would be the mayor's house, Bill's house ("He's not in, dear, but I'll leave a message"), little Ana's, the Clemets, the Turners, the Hendersons, etc., basically the rest of the housing. It was easy to get to know where everything was, as the entire place was only so big. And as much as he liked his friends, John really didn't want to deal with questions at the moment.

So he didn't go down that street. Simple, really, to turn his feet to the left to the pond, and it's debilitated fishing hut. The same hut that all the old grannies hated for it's ugliness, and all the old gramps promised to get someone to fix it up but never got to it. The mothers would tell the younger kids not to go near it ("Dangerous, might collapse any time"), so it was a quiet place.

…Too quiet, actually. John glanced around. Weren't there usually _some_ magikarp jumping for an early snack?

"John!"

John swiveled his head. Who…?

"John Watson!"

The was a pudgy teenager running towards him, and the pudgy teenager looked familiar, he just could put his finger on it…

"It's me! Mike!" Mike spread out his arms, gesturing to himself. John gaped a bit, brows furrowed. Mike clarified for him, saying, "Yeah, I know, I got fat."

Finally, John spoke. "Aren't you suppose to be in London?" he asked, then mentally slapped himself. That was _not_ what you said to an old friend, even if said friend had moved away three years ago. It was the talk of the village for months.

"Yeah, I was, great place, London, but dad wanted to visit Gran and that's not what I was going to say!" Mike started gesturing frantically. "Come on, come on!"

"What?" But John got up anyway, and the other boy was off and he jogged to catch up. Mike briefed him on the way.

"You still up for treating pokemon, mate?" Mike huffed.

"Huh?"

"Well there's this injured one up the road, thought it'd be right up your street…"

"Err…"

"Dad was all for letting 'wild things do their own thing', but I saw it and remembered how crazy you were about doctors and pokemon…"

"Mike…"

"And we were pretty close to the village already so I thought why not find you and see what we could do…"

"Mike…"

"Because it looked pretty pathetic out there and you liked to help people so –"

"MIKE!"

The other boy finally stopped, panting for breath a bit, and John was free to speak. "Look, whatever you remember was a long time ago, and…" he paused, glancing around. "Are we really leaving the village?"

They were at the gate. Ok, it was more like two posts signaling where the road was, but anything beyond it was…dangerous. _Really_ dangerous, wild pokemon and craggily paths and everywhere you shouldn't be without a guide.

Mike finally finished his statement. "Mate, that pokemon looked really beat up, had quite a few cuts even _I_ could see."

"But outside…" John trailed off. He'd admit, that sounded pretty bad, but he didn't even have his bag with him, what was he suppose to do?

He got a funny look. "John, weren't you the one always sneaking out the gate before? That's what I remember."

"But that's…"

Mike quickly cut in. "Come on, Watson, it's just up the road, past the bridge, on the left under that rock with the vines. It's not that far!"

John ran that through his head. It really wasn't far, he'd at least passed there several times. Just a fifteen minute walk, really.

He squared his shoulders. Right, it wasn't that far, there weren't any cliffs involved, and there was a pokemon in need. He supposed he could just carry it back and sneak it…Dr. Sawyers would be off limits for now, so he guessed he could put it in the shed. He started out, one step, two step…

He turned. "Well aren't you coming?" he asked.

Mike shuffled by the gate. "Well, you were always the stupidly brave one, you know…" He hedged.

"Gee, Thanks," John grumbled. Hesitation was creeping up again. What if he couldn't do anything, what if he slipped, what if, what if…

"But you know, I think one of its paws was hanging funnily, it might've been broken. And for some reason it looked kinda smooshed…" Mike added.

Okay, that sounded really bad. "Right then," John said, and he was walking again, quickly, with purpose. Damn if he couldn't do anything, he could at least drag the poor thing to some shelter.

A dozen yards behind him, Mike was shouting "Good luck!". The wanker.

* * *

Yay! Another chapter finished and not months late!


End file.
